Near misses

PCros

Well my worst was braking to late on loose gravel on the Finglas M50 flyover and skidding right up to the back of a 07 M-Class, ended up about half an inch away from his bumper! Funnily enough the driver didnt even notice me and just drove off, a load of construction site workers did though.

I shat out a few bricks mind you!

Anybody have some near miss stories??

nikimere

Nearly everyday! Mostly with women and old people. Not being ageist or sexist just facts.
One this morning an woman decided to driver the whole way around the round-about on the outside lane of a 2 lane round-about. I was on the inside attempting to exit the round-about and she nearly took the nose of my car with her!
My worst "Near miss" was about 2 months ago, i was a passenger and we were driving towards Ashbourne on the old road. Some young woman in a corsa ("L" driver) came from one of the side roads, didn't stop at all, crossed the main road and out another side-road. She crossed the road at about 40MPH and went between the car infront and us. If we had of been 10 meters up the road we were dead. Was actually a very scary experience!!

unkel

I've only ever had one near miss! That was a Garda patrol car shooting out of a laneway onto the main road right in front of me. I jammed on the brakes and when I came to a halt, I had less than an inch to spare. The Garda apologised profusely

justindublin

Had a 2007 Golf for about 2 weeks, ASR + ABS + 4 Break Discs Pads..... Got used to driving it.

Got back in 2001 Punto Sporting (garage just off the m1), No-ASR, No ABS, Only front breaks.... Hit the motorway to Belfast.
Stupidly speeding up the the M1 Toll, Hit the breaks where i normally would in the golf..... Slid straight into the barried :eek:

A BMW M5 had litterally just left the toll before me, if i had have been 10seconds earlier i would have hit the back of it.

Quickly got my cop-on back after that!!

lightening

Anyone get pins and needles in their fingers after a near miss?

patrickc

the other day i was driving up the n7 (3 lanes) I was in the outside lane and went to move into the middle lane, I was half way into it when a dumper truck decided to move from the inside lane to the middle one at the same time, I just had to quickly swerve back into outside lane, that was scary.

craichoe

Going down the Ballincollig bypass in Cork, Woman in the over take lane decided to come to a complete stop (smoke pouring off the tyres) i was overtaking a car and it didnt compute that she was stopped ! .. Stepped on the brakes, skid, released, stepped, at least i had a bit of control, realised i couldnt stop in time and narowly missed her by a couple of inches.

It looked like she was after dropping something on the floor and was looking for it.

Strangely enough i wasnt even upset, just drove off, the girl in the passenger seat was SCREAMING her lungs out and waving her arms about the place.

rick_fantastic

coming into abbeyleix from cork side @ 100km/h, wet conditions. tailback of traffic around blind corner.

new bmw745 jammed on infront of me, i quickly jammed on and started skidding towards other car. wasnt going to stop so let off the brakes and turned into hard shoulder and braked again. missed the beemer by bout 6inchs and wrecked front bumper of my car in the embankment.

was very lucky

PCros

lightening wrote:

Anyone get pins and needles in their fingers after a near miss?

A bit of a cold sweat to and you heart thumping like it wants to get out!

blastman

Similar to craichoe, years ago driving home late one night. I was a reasonable distance behind the car in front doing about 50mph. A car was stopped on the opposite side of the the road and there was another vehicle, possibly an AA van in attendance, complete with orange flashing roof lights. As I drove by, I glanced in the mirror at it and held my gaze a fraction of a second longer than I normally would. When I looked forward again, the car in front had come to a complete stop (for no apparent reason, as far as I could tell she was rubbernecking) and I was now approaching at 50mph!

Jammed on the brakes, realised I wasn't going to stop, held as long as I could and then released them and swerved to the right (had also enough presence of mind to see there was no traffic coming toward me). Missed her by inches, but I was now heading toward the ditch on the other side of the road still doing 30+mph. Managed to not lose the back of the car and swerved left to avoid the ditch and then managed to get everything back under control. I wanted to get out and kill the stupid b*tch, but I was too relieved.

It was one of the scariest moments of my life driving a car, as my dad and my brother were in the car with me, too. I think my dad was impressed that he'd made a decent driver out of me.

craichoe

It wasnt a near miss .. it was a crash .. was on a bike though and i was a bit younger.

Guy was turning left , i indicated right and over took, instead of turning straight in he swung onto the wrong side of the road.

BANG ...

At the time i had no options ... I just made a stupid face and went ARRRRGGGHHHH

I was surprised i didnt poo myself .. although it all happened quite quickly .. i sppose it was a near miss since i dropped the bike and it slid under the back of his car ...

Not nice picking bits of stones and **** out of your leg with a tweezer.

Turned out he was pulling into his house .. his dad was Sh*tless i was going to sue, i dont really agree with suing to be honest, they paid my medical bills and i didnt miss any work and damage to the bike was minimal, a few scratches and a new indicator.

mike65

The closest without actually being struck was many moons ago when I was still pootling about in a Fait 127, myself and 3 others were driving from AnCO to another location in town, as we approached a filling station on our left a woman (yes!) who had just done her business there edged towards the road side, looked towards us and then pulled out anyway! At this point her eyes registed we did in fact exist - she hit the anchors and having lurched to the right a fraction we passed her front bumper with the odd inch or two to spare.

Mike.

HashSlinging

Closest I've ever been to a near miss was when I was coming off the roundabout at the sandyford industrial est going up towards the M50 bridge past the bewleys hotel.

I was on the inside lane and this polo came speeding up on the outside and cut up at literally the last minute, to go back into the ind park, it was mm's away from my bonnet. lucky for her I couldn’t turn around, she would have got the hairdryer treatment.. i was in the missus car also, so was being extra careful at the time, but not overcautious, so mad..:mad:

michaelanthony

The back of my car went out and the car went into a 180 degree spin after exiting a roundabout on a wet day.(BMW with back wheel drive) Car behind nearly crashed into me. Now I hate driving in the wet.

peasant

Many years ago on holiday in Cornwall, friend and myself were pootling down one of those typical narrow country lanes (you know, wall and hedge either side, like a tunnel almost) in my LHD car.

Coming round a blind bend, all of a sudden there was a truck with a wide mobile home on the back coming against us at a fair rate.
The wheels of the truck were already well over the white line, the edge of the overhanging mobile home was in the perfect height and position to decapitate my friend and only a few yards away :eek:

Slammed hard on the brakes, knew that we wouldn' come to a stop in time and already saw pictures of headless friend flashing through my mind ...when all of a sudden, just where you needed it, there was a rather wide driveway to an estate or somethin on our side of the road.
Let go of the brakes, swing into there,brake hard again, start skidding on gravel ...now it looks like we're going to crash side on into the wall of the driveway ...the wall is about three meters from my face and we're still doing probably 40-50 km/h.

Off the brakes, turn the wheel to the right and hit the gas ...wheels spinning, getting grip ....juuuust pulling us away from that wall and into the road again, just behind the truck.

Now I'm facing at the opposite wall at 45 degrees, turn wheel again, skid a bit, the back comes round, steer into it and finally we're straight again, on our side of the road and safe.

Made it to the next layby (50 m down the road) before we both got out and just collapsed on the ground ...no legs, no nothing left ...everything was just shaking.

cold_filter

went from a 1.2 to a 1.8, driving to mayo and this clown in a micra was behind me on the n4 single carriage way. i was probably doing 120 and the micra somehow was keeping up. Anyway the clown pulls out to over take me on a bend so i kept up the speed i was doing he got about halfway up my car length..... and a truck comes around the bend. the micra just turns towards me didnt break or anything and miss my rear by a few inches i had speeded up when i seen the truck as i had a feeling he idiot would do something like that.

He didnt try to overtake me again

Guy:Incognito

Was a passenger in my dads car a couple of months ago (we were carpooling to work as we were on a job in Greystones) coming past Dundrum on th eM50 heading northbound the traffic slowed right to a stop fairly quick, my dad had to break fairly hard but not jamming on. Next thing we hear is beeping and he looks in the mirror to see a girl in her early 20's in a Punto giving out that he was brakign. It suddenly dawned on her that the traffic was stopped. Luckily my dad had checked the inside lane and the traffic there hadnt caught up with us yet he managed to pull into it just in time to watch the daft bint skid right through where we had been and stop about 6 inches from the car that was in front of us.

All the way to the Tallagth exit she was beside us and refused to look across.

jhegarty

unkel wrote:

The Garda apologised profusely

The who did a what....

this is boards, you have to say threaded to arrest you for careless driving and 200 points....

cold_filter

peasant wrote:

Many years ago on holiday in Cornwall, friend and myself were pootling down one of those typical narrow country lanes (you know, wall and hedge either side, like a tunnel almost) in my LHD car.

Coming round a blind bend, all of a sudden there was a truck with a wide mobile home on the back coming against us at a fair rate.
The wheels of the truck were already well over the white line, the edge of the overhanging mobile home was in the perfect height and position to decapitate my friend and only a few yards away :eek:

Slammed hard on the brakes, knew that we wouldn' come to a stop in time and already saw pictures of headless friend flashing through my mind ...when all of a sudden, just where you needed it, there was a rather wide driveway to an estate or somethin on our side of the road.
Let go of the brakes, swing into there,brake hard again, start skidding on gravel ...now it looks like we're going to crash side on into the wall of the driveway ...the wall is about three meters from my face and we're still doing probably 40-50 km/h.

Off the brakes, turn the wheel to the right and hit the gas ...wheels spinning, getting grip ....juuuust pulling us away from that wall and into the road again, just behind the truck.

Now I'm facing at the opposite wall at 45 degrees, turn wheel again, skid a bit, the back comes round, steer into it and finally we're straight again, on our side of the road and safe.

Made it to the next layby (50 m down the road) before we both got out and just collapsed on the ground ...no legs, no nothing left ...everything was just shaking.

I probably would have crapped myself

mikemac

Driving along Sheriff Street on my way into the IFSC.
The street is cobblestones and it was a wet day.

Went around the corner at Connolly Station car park too fast on my moped and lost control.
Both myself and the moped were sprawling on the ground as the number 90 slammed on the brakes stopped just feet from me.

Moral of the story: Wet cobblestones are as bad as ice!

nikimere

HashSlinging wrote:

Closest I've ever been to a near miss was when I was coming off the roundabout at the sandyford industrial est going up towards the M50 bridge past the bewleys hotel.

I was on the inside lane and this polo came speeding up on the outside and cut up at literally the last minute, to go back into the ind park, it was mm's away from my bonnet. lucky for her I couldn’t turn around, she would have got the hairdryer treatment.. i was in the missus car also, so was being extra careful at the time, but not overcautious, so mad..:mad:

Thats exactly the round-about my incident happened at this morning! Bloody idiots!!

whippet

i've had a few alright, especially in my early days of driving.

worst was last year when I was following my auld boy along the back roads of laois somewhere .. both pottering along at about 50mph .. and happened to be on the phone to each other (both on properly installed nokia car kits) .. when the car in front of my auld boy stops suddenly to take a right hand turn that was fairly well hidden ... .the auld boy hits the anchors .... I do the same but my jammer does not have ABS ... so with a bit of serious brake and release action and my auld fella shouting in the ear I managed to stop a fraction of an inch from his bumper .. probably more to do with him managing to roll up a few extra feet when he knew I wasn't in a position to stop.

When the cloud dissappeared ... my auld boy was roaring laughing at the expression on my face ... but my lord was I shaking for the next few miles!!

prospect

My nearest was as the passanger in my friends car (thats not to say I havn't had a few myself).

We were on a back road and approaching a crossroads, where we were supposed to yield.
I was giving directions and about a half mile before the cross I told my friend, "We go straight through at the next crossroads". He took it that I meant we had right of way, and literally drove straight through :O

Luckily there was nobody on the main road...

Easily done, and by god did we sh1t ourselves. I often though afterwards that had we been killed it would have been a case of two males in there early twenties cause fatal accident. The reality is that it was an innocent and silly mistake.

JackieChan

I was on the road between Portumna and Loughrea on a wet winters evening in my oul Renault 4 when I turned a corner and right in front of me was a 4x4 jeep stopped with the driver talking to his mate who was also stopped driving the other way. I jammed the brakes and was convinced that I was going to hit the back of the jeep , I stopped about 6 inches from his hitch. The weirdest part was that the whole incident felt like 20 seconds but was only about 3!

Another time I was driving in to the Green Isle Hotel car park and there was a guy exiting and was blocking me from entering, so I motioned for him to come out. Just then a double decker bus came around the corner and the guy never looked left, 2 seconds later the bus had hammered in to him and spun his car in to mine . His was written off and mine had damage to the wing. I was surprised I was so shock up and I couldn't even give my details to the bus driver. Luckily my dad was with me at the time and drove us home!!

Had two incidences with tractors.
I was approaching a bend(somewhere in Co.Tipperary on a regional road) and a tractor came acround it. Next out of nowhere a car was overtaking the tractor!. Luckily, like a previous poster, the road widened outside of someones house. I was able to pull in there and quickly back on to the road before the bend.
The other incident is where I was behind a tractor near Rosenallis and a the road widened and straightened so I indicated/pulled out. Just then the tractor driver indicates and starts turning right in to his lane blocking my road!I quickly pulled in to entrance of his lane and back out on to the road. Very scary experience!

Nordie

I was travelling home from a weekend away and had a 3 hr journey. Due to lack of sleep the night before I dozed off at the wheel, the car was heading into a bank at the side of the road when the sound of the tyres on gravel and stones woke me just in the nick of time. :eek: Thankfully I was I was only 5 mins from home.

seamus

I can't recall most of them, even though the scariest ones would have occured on the motorbike.

The only one that stands out right now was a few years back, when I was a cockier young buck. My car was in for repairs, so I was driving my Mum's, which was a little faster and sportier than mine

So I'm doing 60mph down the N81, and I see a jeep in front of me. He's moving, I'm happy. Then all of a sudden it dawns on me that he has stopped - he has no brake lights - and I'm less than 50m behind him, doing 60mph. Cue jam on brakes, sliding for what seemed like an age (though when I looked at the skidmarks on my way home that evening, they were only about 20m long), and me starting to steer towards the verge. I was terrified of damaging my Mum's car. Just as I was approaching his rear, he started to turn into his farm. Much sighing and whewing ensued.

Marcus.Aurelius

cold_filter wrote:

went from a 1.2 to a 1.8, driving to mayo and this clown in a micra was behind me on the n4 single carriage way. i was probably doing 120 and the micra somehow was keeping up. Anyway the clown pulls out to over take me on a bend so i kept up the speed i was doing he got about halfway up my car length..... and a truck comes around the bend. the micra just turns towards me didnt break or anything and miss my rear by a few inches i had speeded up when i seen the truck as i had a feeling he idiot would do something like that.

He didnt try to overtake me again

Hope you don't usually accelerate when a car is trying to pass you!

Worst thing for me was a lorry coming around a bend on a backroad on the wrong side, lucky that he recovered quickly enough to give me enough room to squeeze by him. Yikes, lorry drivers are so full of it!

Mr. Larson

I did this when I was a younger, more careless fellow. Up by Johnny foxes, coming from the Dublin side there is a crossroads somewhere along the way. I bombed straight through the junction, ignoring the stop sign and flying through a more major road at about 50mph and miraculously there was noone on the other road. I only realised I had passed through a Stop sign about 200 yards the other side... I had to turn around and double check what I had just done. Idiotic, careless and utterly lucky that I didn'd kill someone or myself. Haven't even come close since then, that was about 6 years ago.

Andrewf20

On the big roundabout over the M50 at the N3, I was stopped at a red light coming onto the roundabout. The light went green, the taxi ahead of me moved off, I followed, when a silver corrolla came steaming throught a red light from my right hand side. If I was 5 metres more forward the corolla would have T boned me at about 35 mph causing at least savage injuries. Some old woman driving.

Also, in Dundrum on my way back from 3 rock, a woman in a Punto driving the wrong way around a roundabout under the M50 nearly cleaned me off the road if it wasnt for my quick attack of the steering wheel.

afatbollix

my worse was this:
60ish into a tree.....


o ya i walked away with out a scratch.. only a sore back...

PCros

anto-t wrote:

my worse was this:
60ish into a tree.....


o ya i walked away with out a scratch.. only a sore back...

Thats not a near miss....you hit something and suffered!!!

This is a thread of near misses!!

Cianos

Twice in the past week or so I have been nearly hit into by someone in the wrong lane on the roundabout. Today near Cherrywood off the M50 I was taking my exit from the inside lane and thankfully I was checking to my left otherwise the woman in the Punto (are we seeing some kind of pattern here!?) would have slammed straight into me. I had to break fairly fast and the driver behind me started beeping. Dont know if it was at me or the other driver :rolleyes:

gyppo

They're been a few near misses, but 2 stick in my mind.

Going from Tuam to Dunmore theres a series of about 3 90 degree bends 3 miles out from Tuam. About 12 years ago, I remember meeting a guy driving a bread van (it was something like a mercedes van - one of those ones with a very large windscreen), on thw wrong side of the road. He was ASLEEP!!, and coming my way. Stone walls either side of me, I leaned on the horn, the breadvan driver woke up, overcorrected, buried the nose of his van in the wall on his correct side, and came to a halt at a right angle to the road. The back wheel of his van and the front of my car were 3" apart.
I got out of the car, asked the other guy was he ok, and then I puked, probably when I realised just how close it was. The funny thing was, all that had happened appeared to be in slow motion, although 4/5 seconds was probably all it took.

The other close call was near Kiltoom (6 miles from Athlone, towards Roscommon). Was overtaking a cattle lorry going down a hill (broken white lines my side, solid line the other side). Halfway through the manouvre, a lady pulls our of her private entrance, looks to her right only, and proceeds out into the road, straight in front of me. Only for the driver of the cattle lorry was sharp, and pulled over the hard shoulder rapidly, a head-on collision was inevitable. As it was, i got out between the car and lorry with an inch to spare either side.
I spent some time afterwards digging my fingernails from the steering wheel:)
(ala steve martin in that clip from Planes, Tranes, and Automobiles).

LostinBlanch

Years ago I was driving a van full of double galzed units out to Newbridge. I was going up the hill past Rathcoole. This was before the motorway was built and you could still pull out and cross two lanes of traffic to get into Dublin from the Poitin Still.

I´m goin up the hill in the left hand lane at about 45mph (couldnät go any faster with a big load). There is an oil tanker pulling into the Poitin Still about 50 yards in front of me and one of those big Dan Ryan solid body trucks about 20 yards behind me in the overtaking lane. All of a sudden a lite ace pulled out across the road right in front of me, obviously he got impatient waiting for traffic to clear so he could cross the carriageway to get to Dublin. I am standing on the brakes and am going to hit the back of him turning him around to face the Dan Ryan truck. My van involuntarily moves to the left missing him by a couple of inches. It wasthe only time it ever did that when I braked.

I wonder how many (other) accidents the lite ace driver´s had since then, and how many people has he killed.

jozi

Had 2, both same situation, Roundabout in cavan, in the evening. Both times i approached the roundabout as you would, indicating, slowing down etc, no other traffic so i proceed to go around (still indicating) i clear the 1st exit which has a taxi coming towards it, does he slow down - off course not. Both times the taxi driver had skidded to a halt and i had stopped on the roundabout near the taxi.

At the junction in phibsboro, i was a pedestrian watching the lights, light goes amber traffic in 1 lane comes to a halt nothing for a few car lenghts in the other lane. MPV (woman driver) must have not see nthe red or amber light and kept driving one :S lucky for the motor biker that he seen her and he managed to slow down on time to avoid a colision. MPV driver didnt even seem to notice what she had done

manti452

I've had a few, some down to me and some to others :S

Last night was down to two idiots in the space of 30 seconds. Parked just up from the main door to the Rotunda on Parnell Sq, was just turning on lights and starting engine when the nice and the very gracious obligatory taxi driver sits about 3 feet behind my spot waiting for me to reverse out. So as I try and do that he's edging forward. A bus is waiting on the far side so some other muppet tries to squeeze thru the gap left. This means when I nearly clip the taxi trying to get out and the car next to me trying to get my car around the one next to me on opposite lock with the space he left me.. said muppet (if ur still with me :P) rips up the middle and nearly takes my wing and my gf with him .. thinking the way ahead is clear every one else proceeds thru the gap now bigger cos the taxi was into my spot 2 secs after I got out. So as I indicate and pull out.. heading up and to the right towards Barry's Hotel, some bint in a 106 with L plates is back out on the left side.. (plenty of space to pass there) however she swings extra wide so I jam on.. and the boy f*king racer in his black celica with blacked out windows leans on his horn at me for braking suddenly then dips into the gap and tears off weaving across both lanes. I just found a parking spot.. couldn't drive further I was so fit to be tied..

Last one was coming down the m50 after work (nbound) before the ballymun exit and traffic suddendly brakes. I had left good distance and was only doing 60 in the outside lane, but I missed a split second reaction as I thought they were merely slowing a little and not coming to a slow crawl. Was not going to stop in time to avoid the M5 in front of me so with brakes on swearved into the median (crossing one of these rare concrete sections and slid onto the grass.. ended up level with the driver :S

I now believe everyone is stopping regardless

Esel

patrickc2006 wrote:

the other day i was driving up the n7 (3 lanes) I was in the outside lane and went to move into the middle lane, I was half way into it when a dumper truck decided to move from the inside lane to the middle one at the same time, I just had to quickly swerve back into outside lane, that was scary.

This is a classic accident scenario. Always check before moving to centre lane from either side!

_Kaiser_

seamus wrote:

Then all of a sudden it dawns on me that he has stopped - he has no brake lights

The amount of cars and vans (even 40ft trucks) driving around with no brake lights working is scary!

6ix

It's a wet, but bright evening, and I'm driving on a regional road (barely two lanes) in the West, doing about 100kmp/h - there's a half-mile of straight ahead. I come around a slight bend, and unfortunately there's a dog in the middle of the road, about 100 metres away, and he's an old, fat, immobile dog. He's waddling on to my side of the road, trying to reach the house at the side of the road, but he's only about 1 foot from the white line. There's oncoming traffic, and no hard shoulder, so I had nowhere to go.(Fido's going to doggy heaven). Braked a bit harder, and tried to keep tight to the verge.

I felt a skid, and the car going a bit sideways as I squeezed past the dog. I was inches from the walls of the house. An adrenaline rush that I could do without, and all for an old dog.